Thursday, April 14, 2016

Final Reflections: Nathan Ty Lambert

My Self-Directed Learning

My self-directed learning had the greatest impact upon my
learning this semester. I tried to go to the BYU special collections every time
that we had personal learning time to avoid the monotony of Youtube and
Wikipedia. Reading, exploring, and researching the book Micrographia by Robert
Hooke was the most rewarding of my researches. Learning about Micrographia
launched me head first into the period of time called the Enlightenment. It
helped me understand the main themes of the Enlightenment such as changing our
frames of reference and collective collaboration. As a result of reading
Micrographia I discovered the history behind the Royal Society and The
Invisible College. I was able to relate the concepts and ideas that founded the
Royal Society to businesses such as Apple or Google Inc. Second, reading The
Communist Manifesto magnified my understanding of the ideologies of the 20th
century. It really changed my view on just seeing Communism as an inherent
evil. I was able to supplement the reading with a documentary on Senator Joseph
McCarthy. The 20th century was full of clashing political ideologies
that led to World War I, II, and the Cold War. I appreciate the 20th
century much more after reading and watching primary documents such as The
Communist Manifesto and The Twilight Zone. In conclusion, I spread my
self-directed learning out over many different avenues in order to gain the most
knowledge about subjects that were intriguing to me.

My Evolving Project

I was very scared and confused when I finished reading the
prompt for the final project. I did not understand how I was going to
contribute to the final project or my personal one. I began with the concept of
revolutionizing the United States of America’s healthcare system. I related it
to the failure of the French Revolution and how sometimes there is too much
change. I finished sketching my ideas on the index cards and published them in
the “When is Change too Much?” blog post. Upon receiving comments from Jackson
Berg, I realized that my topic would not be able to fit in the class theme of
critical communication. I completely changed directions by writing about the
lost generation of World War I and social media. I received many comments from
Jolene and Kaitlyn that helped shape my final project. In addition, thanks to
Jordan Argyle I realized that I should create an introductory video to my
individual blog post.

Our group
project began on shaky ground as well. I was assigned to be in the Patterns of
the Past group, which I feel did not really fit well with my individual
project. We had many iterations of this project as time went on. At first the
group wanted to produce a Moovly video, but decided that a more personal video
would be more effective. The group video that we had posted was very primitive
and took a lot of time to finish. We received very good feedback from Eli
Hainsworth and from Professor Burton. We decided that we needed to add personal
angles into our argument and video just as the group about Social Media and Digital Tools did. Lastly, we
added the finishing touches with the sounds and pictures in order to produce
our final product. This resulted in a much more effective and appealing video
introduction.

Communication and History

Communication is central to society because it provides a
means through which humans can interact. In order to form a civilized society
it is necessary to have a form of communication. There has always been
communication, but the mediums in which society communicates through change
rapidly. The newest form of communication and interaction always make the
headlines of human society. They are the crowning event of that century. When
we define an era or century, we usually do it through the type of communication
that was present during that era. Communication has shaped our history, thus
molding our contemporary society. Understanding the different forms of
communications in the past has led me to conceptualize communication in the
present more effectively. The invention of the printing press revolutionized
the way ideas were spread in the 13th century. Communication became
much quicker and more ideas were spread. This was very evident in the birth and
evolution of The Invisible College. The Invisible College heavily utilized the
fruits of the printing press as they published and spread their scientific
ideas. Seven hundred years later a new form of communication was born which we
know as the Internet. Humans could now communicate more rapidly than ever
before. Institutions such as Apple Incorporated took advantage of the Internet
to spread their ideas. Just as their predecessors, the new form of
communication had aided them in becoming a world-renowned institution. In
conclusion, the invention of the Internet completely shapes our current
society, but also helps us understand the past better. As there are infinite
ways to advance communication, there will always be infinite ways to
revolutionize the world.